Mac to iphone calendar push notification app?

February 24, 2012 6:12 AM

Is there an app, combo of apps or app/email combo where I can send a calendar event from my mac to my wife's iPhone - and then the event is added to a calendar app on her iPhone?

I use a written diary and make a lot of plans - invariably telling my wife, who sometimes forgets. She uses her iphone calendar app but rarely enters stuff manually when I tell her (not by the phone, busy etc)……This is stressful. I would like an a way where I could

i) On my mac - either on my calendar or another app, enter an event with date/time detailed info
ii) Press 'send' either on the app or by email
iii) The event appear in my wifes inbox or in an app on her iphone
iv) She clicks 'accept' or an equivalent action for the event to be added to her iphone calendar or another calendar app on her iphone.

The iphone end of things must be simple and low maintnance!

She has an iPhone 4 (not 4S). I use mac osx 10.6.8 and am not updating…..

I'm not looking to sync our calendars on google, as I don't keep a google calendar (I use my diary!).

I want something quick and easy to operate (I don't mind spending time setting up but it should be low maintenance to use!).

Other suggestions welcome!

posted by lalochezia to computers & internet (10 answers total)

I'm not looking to sync our calendars on google, as I don't keep a google calendar (I use my diary!).

Could you set up a fresh google account for your wife to sync to? Then 'on your mac, in another app' = you accessing this google calendar.
posted by pompomtom at 6:23 AM on February 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well, I was going to suggest google calendar until I saw your comment about it. I do the same thing with my girlfriend. You can set her calendar app to sync with your google calendar, and then anything you add to your calendar will automatically appear on her iPhone's calendar app. You would of course need to use google calendar, but you could look at it as simply the "app" that lets you remotely add events to her personal calendar.
posted by Nightman at 6:26 AM on February 24, 2012

Does the "Invitee" field in an iCal event work under Snow Leopard without iCloud? I'm not sure how this would work now that Apple is pushing iCloud and Lion (which iCloud requires and appears you don't have), but that MAY be a way to send events with Accept/Decline/Maybe functionality?
posted by jroybal at 6:27 AM on February 24, 2012

Otherwise, you could also publish/share to a CalDAV server a new calendar with the events you want her to have that she can access in her phone's Calendar. It will update automatically. I used to use iCalExchange for this purpose (icalx.com; free) and that worked well, but maybe someone can chime in with another (newer?) recommendation. Create a new calendar, right click it, choose ~"Share/Publish Calendar" and use the settings icalx.com provides to publish it, then add the calendar to her iPhone.
posted by jroybal at 6:36 AM on February 24, 2012

yeah, just set up a shared google calendar that you can add events to. For the iphone end, I like SaiSuke.
posted by corvine at 6:47 AM on February 24, 2012

This doesn't necessarily need sync'ing

In iCal just make an event and add her email on the invitee list.

It should get emailed to her and if she clicks on the invite in the email body it should get added to her calendar on the phone. (Normally it should actually automatically show up in her calendar, wit the ability to accept or reject - but that hasn't consistently worked for me)

Its not sync'd anywhere but it should work.
posted by bitdamaged at 6:53 AM on February 24, 2012

In iCal, right click on any event and choose "Mail Event". This will open up your default mail application and allow you to email the event to your wife. When your wife opens the email, she will be able to select the "attached" event and it should automatically add itself to her iCal.
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 7:03 AM on February 24, 2012

Before I updated the Macs in my household to Lion, here's how I did it:

1. Set up google calendar accounts for my wife and me.
2. Used BusySync to sync from ical on our desktops to gcal.
3. Set up gcal so that certain of my calendars were shared to her, and vice versa.
4. Went back into BusySync to set it up so that we sync'd the calendars being shared to us.
5. Set up Exchange syncing on the iPhones to suck down the gcal entries.

The net effect was that when I added something to a shared calendar on my side, it magically appeared on my wife's calendar, and vice versa.

This worked, but was obviously a lot of fooling around and occasionally flaked out. OSX 10.7 makes it a lot easier with iCloud, and I've abandoned this approach. BusySync is good software, though; they also make a calendaring app that integrates these syncing features directly.
posted by adamrice at 7:53 AM on February 24, 2012

Bitdamagd: I have no "invitee" option on my iCal

While all the other answers would work, TBoAF's answers seems to be the best - the mail event option.

If I ever move to electronic calendars that need syncing, I'll use the other advice. Thanks!
posted by lalochezia at 8:37 AM on February 24, 2012

OK, maybe the add invitees does work....
posted by lalochezia at 8:41 AM on February 24, 2012